Posts Tagged 'Mobile World Congress'

The Mobile World Congress 2013 has closed its doors. 1700 exhibitors (+200). 72000 visitors (+7000). But what remains? Fiesta, Siesta or Vista? Was it a party, a nap, or a vision? It depends on the beholder. Some were bored, some excited, and some inspired. We could see the Internet of Things leaving the horizon, cloud computing permeating the mobile network, and a few surprises with user devices.

The Internet of Things, this will be the 50 Billion mobile devices by 2020 as predicted by Ericsson, connected to the Internet, realizing services hosted on cloud computing centers scattered all over the globe. Most of these devices will not be smartphones or tablets, but rather sensors, smart objects and commodities, smart tags, robots, vehicles and the like. It will be machines talking to machines (M2M), and sometimes also to humans. Most of these interaction will be wireless. The result will be Big Data, a gigantic amount of data, constantly growing at incredible speed. Tremendous growth is expected and the ecosystems are starting to evolve. They mainly cluster around the concept of Smart Cities, one of our current big challenges.

New business models start to appear. They are built around the Big Data being collected. Imagine a smart car generating lots of usage data. Insurance companies can generate special tariffs, depending on the type of usage. Some end user will like it, because of the money they can save. A similar principle applies to car maintenance contracts. Even car sharing models such as zipcar become manageable. Your fridge will never be empty, but always contain your favorite food, delivered just in time. You don’t even have to go shopping for it, if you don’t want to. You will always be guided to an empty parking place. You will never miss a train or wait for a long time at the station for a friend to pick you up. Intelligent traffic management systems calculate the optimal route for your car to be there on time. Municipalities will save money while being able to offer better and sustainable service.

To exploit these data and to interconnect services and businesses Service Delivery Platforms are necessary which comply with standards and are able to integrate legacy M2M solutions. The cloud offers M2M-as-a-Service. However, equally important will be the bandwidth available to the users. To be more precise: bandwidth without frustrating quality of service. This type of bandwidth is a scarce resource. Both, the mobile cells and the outer parts of the backhaul often operate at their capacity limits. One of the solutions here are small cells, miniature, short-range base stations. Millions of them. Small cells come as complete packages including multi-mode and management. The end users will neither realize that they are there, nor that they are suddenly connected to one. But they will experience them as the quality of service increases, and the life of their batteries stretches. Infonetics predicts a bright future for these small invisible helpers.

We also saw a paradigm shift for the end user devices. Firefox OS – similar to Google’s Chrome OS – executes HTML5 code without a browser. At the same time this HTML5 app is portable: an app developed for Firefox OS runs as well in a standard mobile browser of other platforms such as Android, iOS or Windows. This is a key differentiator: apps just need to be developed once and execute everywhere, with little or no effort. Even the portation of an existing web app to the new platform is cheap. Firefox OS will start as a cost-effective solution for threshold countries, replacing feature phones by low-cost smartphones. An additional side-effect is that this new OS allows network operators to gain access to the application layer again. They can now create their own app market and can compete with the established OTT ones from Android and iOS.

Need a new phone? Why not considering YotaPhone? One phone, two displays. Half smartphone, half e-reader. A high-resolution liquid crystal display on one side and an electronic paper display (EDP) on the other. If you use it intelligently, you can save a lot of battery.

What is your opinion? Was this year’s Mobile World Congress a Fiesta, a Siesta, or was it Vista? You can discuss it here, or life at Cambridge Wireless.

If we’re coming to the Mobile World Congress this year thinking we’ve got all the answers – or at least some of them – then maybe I need to disappoint us. What we really need are questions. Lots of them. Why?

It is because we are living in the age of disruptions. It is not that they occur every once in a while. They characterize this era. There frequency even increases. They shake everything and everyone, one after the other. There seems to be no end. Many answers belong already to the past, before they have enjoyed a life in the present. Our museums are full of brilliant answers, the dreams and aspirations of even older generations of engineers. But what prevails in this shakeout?

The unshakable. I.e. the resilient, the flexible, the ones anticipating the next move. The ones that have implemented ambitious dreams into their designs, at a time when the majority was laughing at them. The ones having more questions than answers. There are times when questions are more important than answers. Yes, these are our days. Whereas answers sooner or later find their “eternal home” in the museum, questions always have their future in front of them. And, it must be the right questions. It is like George Bernard Shaw once said: “You look at the world and ask ‘Why?’. I dream and ask ‘Why not?’”.

So let’s have a look at the disruptions that our industry created in the past 100 years, say, and see what we could learn for what is ahead of us. When Wireline Telephony was invented and introduced, the delivery boys became obsolete. The required basic technology was circuit interconnectivity. Visionaries like Heinrich von Stephan, who built world’s most advanced telephone system in Germany were laughed at and found themselves in the “Book of Idiots”, which later became the public telephone book. What was the true nature of this disruption and why was its impact so profound? This question is difficult to answer and would fill at least another blog post. So we keep this question to help us guide into the future.

Mobile Telephony extended Wireline Telephony, requiring mobile circuit connectivity. No one further became obsolete this time. Things changed, when Data Communication appeared. Packet communication had quite a few advantages over circuit connectivity. However, the opposite of this statement has also some relevance: for instance the Carrier Grade versions of Ethernet emulate some of the circuit connectivity features. Packet communication gave us the Internet. And the Internet gave us an abundance of information. We suddenly had abundance to such an extent that it required search to be useful. Search was free, of course, and refinanced via advertising. This abundance of information and the corresponding shift in advertising started to make printed products obsolete. What was the true nature of these disruptions and why was their impact so profound?

Then Voice over IP (VoIP) arrived with improved packet communication. Skype and Co. were just cheaper and offered attractive new services in combination with voice. Circuit Wireline Telephony became obsolete. Did voice communication become obsolete? No! International voice traffic has a constant annual growth of 13%, thus compensating price declines at the same rate. This is a stable trend for decades. And it is still true up until 2012, being 490 Billion minutes. However, since 2011 this growth came significantly from OTT voice solutions combined with smart messaging services, increasing the pressure on carrier voice solutions. What was the true nature of this disruption and why was its impact so profound?

In the early 2000’s, Social Communication entered the arena. It required Cloud Computing as the enabling and driving technology. Traditional communication services and techniques became much less important. What was the true nature of this disruption and why was its impact so profound?

The iPhone brought us the breakthrough in Mobile Data Communication. It required even more advanced packet technology. App stores were established, an app economy appeared, and exploded. More traditional communication services became much less relevant. In 2007, UMTS packet data was exploding over UMTS voice. And in 2009, the volume of total mobile packet data was greater than all mobile voice. In February 18, 2013, Booz & Co. predicts a decrease of mobile voice turnover of 5% per year until 2016 to then $ 628 Billion, while the one of data will grow by 9% per year. The annual data volume even grows by 29%. This growth is generated by mobile digitalization, and the bulk of this growth goes to the OTTs. Infonetics reported recently, that the Carrier VoIP/IMS market sees first positive year since 2008. LTE network operators use IMS to implement their voice solutions. But will this ever pay off, as mobile voice has a sustained decline of revenue? And what about Small Cells? They hit the application layer and implement a mobile PABX. Ubiquisys and Quortus demonstrate a small cell based mobile PABX for small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs). This solution eliminates the need for desk phones, hence making our lives easier. What IS the true nature of these disruptions and why IS their impact so profound?

The marginalization of voice traffic was predicted from the late 1990’s onwards. This seemed to be obvious and inevitable, but the reality was still different. Voice remained a cash cow. Corrective action did not seem to be necessary. But what happened since then? The Telecommunications Operators lost the Application Layer. For 100 years, the Application Layer consisted of voice, fax, telex and the like. Then suddenly the Application Layer became extremely rich and abundant. This abundance was driven by completely new players. Abundance is game-changing. It is so desirable and attractive to the user, that it cannot be hold back. Plus: the disruption of the traditional telephone system by the Internet was also about philosophies “regulated networks” versus a “multistakeholder model”, and of institutions ITU vs. IETF.

Is there a remedy for the Incumbent Telecommunications Service Providers? Will they have a new approach, or just more of the same old same old? Can they reinvent themselves? What will be their new message? Is this message strong enough to drive their change? I really wish there would be one. But honestly, I don’t believe that it is QoS (Quality of Service). It is not the quality of the service that matters; it is the service itself, the application. QoS can only be a stop-gap-solution. The marketing position and the immediate user visibility of the real service is always much better than the just the one of its quality.

And what do we see now at the Mobile Horizon? The nature of a horizon is that it is far away and things cannot be discerned clearly. They seem to be so small. And there appears to be so much time until they arrive here. But what we can already recognize is indeed clear enough. It could be subsumed in the formula M2M & IoT, Machine-to-Machine Communication realizing the Internet of Things. Everything connected, if you like, a new Human-Machine-Society. Do you feel the paradigm shift, again? Our life and work will change, and so will the value chains. Every Next Big Thing starts small. What WILL BE the true nature of these disruptions and why WILL their impact BE so profound? The answers will come. Who will carry them? And, whom will these answers carry? What will constitute the new teams? It is already clear: a new abundance is on the way. Again, it will be game-changing. Again, it cannot be stopped, because it is so desirable.

Business models are currently figured out. This trend is backed up by former Juniper M2M strategist Godfrey Chua joining Infonetics Research. A new nano-scale Chip Design enables the Future ‚Internet of Things‘. This prototype uses solar power and consumes so little energy that its battery does not need to be replaced. Thin and flexible credit-card-size tags can now be developed, which can be attached to common object like books, clothes, furniture, etc., thus connecting those objects to the Internet of Things. M2M protocols such as the MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport) support short intermittent messages which are ideal for IoT applications: connection-less, and sleep & wake communication schemes save battery. This list could easily be extended. Emerging new technologies will transform vertical markets, and they will be mobile: health, transport (cars, trains, ships, planes, space vehicles), energy, learning, payment, homes, cities, etc.

What WILL BE the true nature of these disruptions and why WILL their impact BE so profound? Why not … ?

The iPhone came in 2007. And “to communicate” was since then a six-letter-word. Traditional voice traffic was dominating the mobile networks up to 2007. But then data exploded. Today voice is just a shrinking small margin. Five major forces drive the actors in this huge arena: mobile broadband and small cells, an exploding plethora of smart mobile devices, green wireless, the digitalization of our lives and businesses with its mobile user interface, and finally surprises and disruptions.

In “The Mobile World Congress – A Short History” we identified these five driving forces. Today, we analyze them in more detail, observing their evolution on the Mobile World Congress starting in 2008. This allows us to derive predictions to be checked against the unfolding reality.

MWC 2008:

We know it already; this was year 1 after the iPhone. The MWC got its new name, reflecting the new reality (before it was the 3GSM World Congress). For the first time in history, mobile data traffic surpassed mobile voice traffic, sustained. Mobile voice today is only a very small fraction of the whole game.

One major theme was of course mobile broadband. No wonder: the real smartphones arrived. HSPA and with it mobile TV was taking off with 420 HSPA enabled mobile devices and a $50 Billion global market. LTE presentations and demonstrations were the high-runners. Femtocell companies were maturing: understanding the requirements and offering solutions for interference issues and remote management, while bringing down the costs.

Apple was not present, but hundreds of new types of smartphones were showing features you already knew from the iPhone. Android was only a prototype platform, the user experience being not yet impressive, of course. And Microsoft presented smartphones with Windows Mobile 6, such as the Sony Ericsson’s Slider XPERIA X1.

Green wireless became important with power saving base stations and recycling concepts for mobile devices and batteries. This was necessary, because of the dramatic mobile penetration growth.

Mobile advertising was a hot topic, and considered to be the driving force for rich media mobile entertainment and content, instead of subscription based models. But there was lots of debate as to what percentage of the $640 Billion global advertising market could go mobile and more importantly, how. Social Networking started to become mobile. Increased GPS penetration in handset enabled Location Based Services.

And, we had unexpected heroes. The advent of smartphones shifted the center of gravity away from the Mobile Operators to the Internet OTTs. Plus, Huawei had an impressive presence after a series of European operator successes.

We write year 2 after the iPhone. The mobile industry stands out as one of the few vibrant sectors in a tumultuous world economy. More than 4 Billion mobile users and 80% of the world’s population areas covered with mobile. The Internet is now mobile.

Mobile broadband and small cells move forward on their path. Early operators announced their LTE suppliers, but deployment was likely not to happen before 2010. HSPA is the cash cow and HSPA+ is slowly taking off. Also Femto Cells where a hot topic, it was not yet clear whether they will really take off.

There was significant growth for the mobile devices, as expected. Smartphones were the high-runner, as universal lifestyle devices. Android smartphones arrived, but only a few. HTC also unveiled several smartphones with Windows Mobile 6.1. And Microsoft presented Windows Mobile 6.5 with a new Internet Explorer Mobile. The future was already present with LG’s prototype of a wristwatch phone. New mobile chipsets integrated application processors with audio/video codecs, video playback, GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, FM Radio, etc. There are certainly many more innovative smartphone features and apps to come.

Green Mobile continues to increase its relevance with Universal USB Charging and solar-powered base-stations. This is in particular necessary as the next billion of mobile users will mainly come from developing countries. Green is now one of the main buying arguments.

Again Apple was only virtually present, but they defined the rules of the game. The Mobile App Store is becoming a common booming phenomenon, and with it the app economy takes off. Users came back to the networks, attracted by Web 2.0 mobile technologies and mobile multi-media entertainment. Speech and text recognition became relevant to reduce the keyboard bottleneck on handsets. However, there didn’t seem to be much progress on Mobile TV and Mobile Advertising. Nevertheless, applications are clearly in the driver seat, not the pipe: and since then, this is the key to successful business models.

The unexpected heroes of MWC 2008 are still heroes, but no longer unexpected. OTT VoIP à la Skype became an issue after smartphone vendors start to integrate it, building up a threat to traditional operator voice. This was a hot topic for debate. Huawei and ZTE were doing extremely well winning contracts.

We conclude stating, that our 5 big topics progressed steadily and consequently. They drive innovation and disruption. But we did not see additional major surprises and disruptions.

We are still in the age of the iPhone: year 3. The mobile industry did not really suffer from the economic crisis. We have now 4.6 billion mobile subscribers. LTE is just about to be rolled out. The growing demand for bandwidth has led to capacity problems and discussions over flat-rates.

Android devices really grew. The little green robot was the main topic of the fair. We could call this a breakthrough. It was also the year of Windows Mobile 7, it looked not bad, but turned out to be just another nice try. And there were two other new mobile operating systems: Nokia’s MeeGo and Samsung’s Bada OS; both of them did not last. In total, we saw many new handsets, even more apps and accessories. And one of the coolest things was DoCoMo’s earphones with sensors that could track your eye movement.

The Internet became increasingly mobile. Social Networks were integrated into the smartphone OS and with the local contacts. The app store is still the key to success. Therefore, the leading mobile network operators have started a joint effort to establish a common app development platform. Cloud services such as “Connected Life” of Deutsche Telekom offer a common experience over multiple platforms: phone, computer and TV.

A whole array of new mobile application domains popped up: mLearing, mHealth, mPayment, mobile advertising (finally getting some momentum), and location-based services. Wireless standards such as ZigBee were considered key enablers for the Smart Grid. And, augmented reality was discussed in expert panels. mHealth was seen as one of the main drivers for the M2M market, as smart sensors for remote monitoring could save the healthcare industry up to $200 billion annually.

Security issues became important, as the number of mobile attacks is rising. Hence, prototypes of security platforms were presented to support applications such as mobile payment, secure PIN, secure content management, key management, and user authentication.

Conclusion: the major trends of 2009 continue to gain strength: broadband mobile and Femto Cells, Android, the App Economy, and Green Mobile. Cloud Services appeared and with them many new mobile application domains. Skype was still growing while its usage was slowly allowed by carriers. The disruption rolls.

LTE was starting to be rolled out; promising data rates of 50 Mbps. The advent of LTE drives the mobile cloud market and its apps. HSPA+ still offers a short term substitute with 21-42 Mbps and a HSPA penetration of 400 million connections, growing by 17 million per month.

Again, Apple was not present, but lots of visitors came with iPads. While others have their new pads presented at their booths. More than 700 tablets were announced. 2011 is the year of the tablet. Many were greatly interested in events about the App Economy.

The race of the mobile operating systems and their eco-systems was really opened. The green Androids now fill the market and enter the business space. Android 3.0 runs on tables. VMware presented two virtual Androids on one smartphone: one for business, another one for private use.

Nokia announced collaboration with Microsoft in order to catch up with iOS and Android. The then still largest manufacturer of mobile devices wants to use Windows Phone 7 on their smartphones. This means that Symbian and MeeGo will not survive. However, the real challenges are 8,000 apps in the store vs. 350,000 Apps for iOS and 150,000 for Android. Plus: weak device management and security features for the enterprise.

HTC produced never precedent numbers of mobile devices. LG unveiled Optimus 3D, allowing recording, viewing and sharing of 3D content on a smartphone. However, this turned out more as a gimmick. Also, NFC (Near Field Communication) was announced.

Location Based Services were integrated into social networks, but still the market does not really take off.

2011 was the year of mobile VoIP: Skype’s presence increased, indicating a real take off mobile VoIP minutes, combined with a shrinking amount of traditional voice minutes. OTT voice has arrived.

Conclusion: all trends are intact and robust. We get more of everything in smaller devices.

MWC 2012 had a strong motto: Redefining Mobile. And it seemed that this was quite realistic. The Mobile Internet is now a vital infrastructure, disrupting one analogue industry after the other. New technologies such as HTML 5 improve App development and start to redefine the App Economy. And, the Internet of Things has left the horizon, approaching us all.

The world still faces major economic problems, in particular in Europe. The mobile industry has reached a volume of $ 1.9 Trillion. Growth in Europe is flat, while being good in the US and ROW. 2012 had 5.3 Billion mobile subscribers globally, representing 77% of the world population.

Mobile broadband increases the cake: 10% increase in broadband penetration leads to 1.3% GDP growth in that country. Mobile Internet becomes a vital infrastructure such as water and energy. LTE is now the fastest growing mobile technology: 50 live LTE networks in 30 countries with 10 million users. Prediction for 2016: 200 live LTE networks in 70 countries with 500 million users, where 90% of all base stations will be small cells. LTE handsets were ready as well: a healthy mobile ecosystem. Network optimization is still very important to fill the supply-demand gap for bandwidth. Solutions: Self-Organizing Networks and Wi-Fi Offload using smart WLAN hotspots.

Again, we saw many new smartphones and tablets. Quad-core processors are the big theme now. There were rumors about Windows 8 phones and tablets before the start of the fair; and about NFC-enabled tablets. The next edition of LG Optimus 3D appeared, but still no real breakthrough. Asus demonstrated the PadFone a very interesting combination of smartphone with tablet as a docking-station. Where are Microsoft and Nokia? There is great talk and great expectations on Windows 8. The smartphone market reached $ 480 Billion, with 49% Android. The operators of emerging markets called for sub-$50 smartphones.

Here is the Internet of Things: again Ericsson predicts 50 Billion connected devices by 2020. This market is expected to then be worth $4.5 Trillion, with $600 Billion for the connected car and healthcare, each.

Increasingly the mobile industry becomes an innovation enabler, with high disruptive potential for other industries. Mobile devices are the user interface for the Internet-Cloud-based digitalization of business and life. This impacts already the media, finance, e-commerce, transportation, energy, and healthcare. And, the carindustry opened the doors for the mobile invasion. In particular for mobile money, NFC is necessary to enable this, and commercial deployments were announced in several countries.

The ongoing dilemma of the traditional (mobile) network providers: they lost the application layer, and can’t recover sufficiently. Or better: the application becomes much bigger than voice, and voice is getting increasingly disrupted by OTTs. A real solution for the incumbents is still open and for hot debate. Mobile Messaging and RCS are operator strategies to compete with OTTs. But, can this be successful?

Conclusion: yes, indeed the MWC2012 showed how mobile is going to be redefined, and how it redefines much of our life and business. The growth and the trends were not just more of everything, but new qualities appeared: smarter networks and clouds, HTML5, and the emerging Internet of Things.

We are writing the year 6 after the appearance of the iPhone. Although Apple was never physically present on the Mobile World Congress (MWC), their presence was always strongly felt in the past 6 years. But how did it all come to pass with this great and leading event?

It started in 1987 as a small fair about mobile communication. For 20 long years it was called “3GSM World Congress”. In 2008, i.e. year 1 after the iPhone, it replaced the “3GSM” with “Mobile”. Since 2006, the mobile world meets at the Fira de Barcelona, and in 2013 for the first time at the Fira Gran Via. Today, the Mobile World Congress is not only world’s largest mobile exhibition, but also a conference where prominent CEOs present their views about the future of their brand. You will meet mobile network operators, device manufacturers, app developers, technology companies, network equipment vendors, and content providers. But don’t be surprised, this list may even be longer, much longer.

The MWC is a big magnet. Its force of attraction is constantly getting stronger. In the years 2007 through 2010 the number of exhibitors stagnated at 1300. Since then, it increases by 100 per annum. Likewise the number of visitors: after a small bump in 2009 and 2010 their numbers grow each year by around 6000. There were 67000 visitors in 2012.

There’s a reason for this attraction. We find it in the history of the MWC. Here are the main messages and trends, since the iPhone arrived:

Broadband evolves dramatically into the mobile. LTE is already here growing extremely fast, and driving the mobile-cloud market. Small Cells will dominate the future. The Mobile Internet is a vital infrastructure such as water and energy.

There is an exploding plethora of smart mobile devices. A fierce race of brands. Full of surprises and disruptions. These universal devices changed our lifestyle. Sustained. They will soon become much smaller, include unexpected features, and migrate into well-known commodities, such as clothes, wristwatches, glasses, etc.

Wireless must be green. This applies both for the network infrastructure and user devices. It is one of the main buying arguments.

The digitalization of our life and business has a mobile user interface. And at the core is the Internet Cloud. It’s a big wave. It does not stop. It penetrates and enriches one area after the other: content, entertainment and advertising; social networking; completely new services using our past and current locations; speech and text recognition; health becomes mobile; smart M2M (Machine-to-Machine) devices enable the Smart Grid; they transform our homes, transportation systems, and our finances. The Internet of Things has left the horizon, approaching us all.

We saw even more surprises and disruptions. Users migrate from traditional mobile operators to the Internet OTTs (Over-The-Tops). The mobile app store continues to create new facets of the app economy, which did not exist before. Voice becomes a margin in the Internet, increasingly realized by attractive OTT VoIP solutions à la Skype. Operators migrate to Chinese technology from Huawei and ZTE.

So, if you should consider attending the Mobile World Congress in 2013, watch out. These five topics evolve according their own game-changing rules. Mobile Broadband, User Devices, Green, Applications transforming our lives and businesses, and unexpected surprises and disruptions are here to stay.

The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona clearly shows that the market for Small Cells will be gathering significant momentum over the years to come. In fact, Simon Saunders, chairman of the Small Cell Forum, estimates that the numbers of Femto Cells deployed worldwide will be increasing from 3.2 million installed units in 2012 to over 60 million in 2016.

http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=471674 “Driven by the Smartphone boom, Small Cells are the cornerstone for the next phase of digitalization for all economic sectors – gearing up to the next upswing in the App economy”, confirms Bernd Stahl from the telecommunications provider Nash Technologies on site at the exhibition in Barcelona.

The small radio cells are clearly way ahead of the conventional bulky masts. “They are considerably more cost-effective, their approval processes are less complicated and they can be deployed specifically where there is a high need for bandwidth and where many users communicate at the same time – for instance in football stadiums, inner-city areas or shopping centers”, says Stahl. The Nash Technologies network supplier develops software for companies that produce radio cells – and is most definitely experiencing high-level interest at the Mobile World Congress: “We are having many discussions about these developments, also due to the fact that the Smartphone wave is leading to a heightened need for broadband Internet, which raises the issue of supply”, adds Stahl. And this is just the beginning: “In the future, when the Internet in the key areas of logistics, traffic, health, energy, etc. leads to wide-reaching process digitalization, demand will become even greater.”

Stahl also adds that the introduction of new technologies inevitably implies a transition phase which is not to be underestimated. Whereas most currently developed Small Cells are equipped with LTE, there are hardly any LTE Smartphones. “For the most part, Internet-compatible mobile phones still run with UMTS. And, from a global perspective, this will continue to be the case for quite some time, especially in population-rich, newly industrialized countries and for most users in developed countries. Consequently, the radio cells, and especially Small Cells, need to be equipped with UMTS as well as LTE to enable the transition phase”, says Stahl. And this is exactly why Nash Technologies is present at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. As a telecommunications provider with decades of relevant experience, the software specialists from Nuremberg know their way around LTE, just as well as the considerably more complex world of UMTS. “It’s going to be all about having the different technologies working hand in hand, providing Smartphone users with a seamless transition between both technologies, without their user experience being disrupted”, says Stahl.

Stahl, the ICT expert, is also convinced that, through the development of Small Cells, the App economy will be experiencing its next upswing. Small Cells may only have small geographical coverage. But this makes for a huge benefit: network operators will be aware of exactly where a Smartphone is located, and specifically at locations where it hadn’t been possible previously, because GPS reception wasn’t available in buildings. “When potentially every small business in a downtown area has its own Small Cell, then there’s simply no limit to what can be done. A new type of location-based Apps will be possible, because a business model will be available to support them. Through new Apps, there will be more web traffic and therefore more growth.” To make sure that this growth is also possible during the transition phase from UMTS to LTE, the UMTS-LTE Dual Mode will be key.

Barcelona, 22/02/2012 – With every new Smartphone and every new tablet, potential problems escalate for network providers. They need to keep their mobile communication networks in top shape, otherwise customers could very well drown in data bottlenecks – as they themselves could in prohibitive power costs. “Digitalization of all economic sectors greatly depends on the industry’s willingness to invest”, states IT expert Bernd Stahl from network specialist Nash Technologies. The digitalization of all private and business processes is a megatrend that opens up huge opportunities for innovation and growth.

Hardly a day goes by without a device manufacturer announcing a new product to be launched at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where the entire mobile communications sector is coming together to further drive the mobile Internet vision while setting new impetus for growth. In Germany alone, over 20 million people already have a Smartphone – and the trend is rising.

“The industry is currently facing three major challenges. On the one hand, network providers have to reduce their energy costs. Also, coverage has to be extended to address more rural areas. And finally, frequency ranges also have to be increased, if market needs are to be covered”, says Stahl. Energy costs arise for the most part through the base stations, which currently remain greatly responsible for supply. “The stations, which are often installed in high buildings or on their own masts, cover wide areas. For them to function sufficiently on the edges of these areas, performance at their center automatically needs to be excessively high. This draws the balance downwards”, adds Stahl. Moreover, high costs arise through locations that are either rented or purchased.

A considerably more high-performance and cost-efficient solution is available through Femtocells: “The radio cells can be used where there is a high concentration of people – at hot spots in urban centers for instance. They can deliver in a highly targeted way rather than by providing widespread coverage.” For example, football stadiums or shopping centers can be equipped with their own radio cells. As well, they enable more cost-efficient coverage in rural areas.

The reliability factor is also extremely important in the mobile Internet. No one can afford to have their networks malfunction or break down due to overloading or unexpected events. This is even more important in view of the fast-rising numbers of mobile users and their increased need for bandwidth due to innovative Internet services. Femtocells are no exception, they carry their own set of challenges. This is why the specialists from Nuremberg are also showing their “Nash Protocol Tester” in Barcelona, with which Femtocell performance and efficacy can be tested. http://www.nashtech.com/home/products/nptr/

“Femtocells and Small Cells create the technological infrastructure for the ongoing development of entire economic sectors”, says Stahl. The degree of digitalization in certain industries can be as low as 30 to 45 percent. With digitalization, we are referring to communication, closeness to suppliers, process chains and delivery to end-customers – and not only straightforward LTE access. “The trend is crystal clear: what can be digitalized will be digitalized”, says Stahl.

Nash Technologies at the Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, February 27 to March 1, Hall 2, Stand E18.